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My cat meows, but she doesn’t. Her mouth does the movement, but no sound comes out. If she comes up to me for whatever reason and does one or two of her silent meows, I’ll often joke back at her “What? I can’t hear you… try again.” or some similar bullshit. Of course then I’ll pet her or go check her food and water or try to figure out what she wants…. I mean, I’m not an asshole… but for some reason, when it comes to her stupid little toys, somehow she manages to find her voice.

She likes to pay me back in the mornings sometimes, and this was one of those mornings. I haven’t slept worth a shit for days and days, but her dumb ass decided that this morning around 8a she would start finding all of her random toys to bring down the hallway towards the bedroom, all the while squawking like she was some sort of obnoxious squeeze toy that someone was repeatedly stepping on.

So now I’m wide awake and she’s curled up on the living room floor next to me, sound asleep. Asshole.

Nobody really knows what to say or do for someone when one of their loved ones passes, much the same as nobody knows how their brain is going to react to it. Most of my friends and family are doing exactly what I need – checking in on me now and then with a call or text, but basically leaving me alone so I can work it all out. But I’ve also got a couple people who are constantly wanting me to get out of the house and do something, or who are constantly wanting to come over to visit, etc… and even after explaining how much that’s not what I want or need right now, I dunno, I guess they don’t believe me.

They’re trying to make me feel better, when actually they are making me feel like shit – when nearly every day I have to tell someone no… that I don’t want to go out to spend time with them, or no, I don’t want them here spending time with me. It’s simply a matter of needing time, but I know that in at least some way I’m hurting those people’s feelings, making them feel unneeded or unwanted. So I haven’t even really had a chance to reset and regain my bearings since Genesee left, because almost every day I’m reminded how much I’m not okay yet – by wanting to just be away from people and “stuff” for a while – and knowing that each time I do it, I seem ungrateful or whatever.

And again, I know that I’m probably not reacting like most people do, but when I give an explanation you’d hope that would help, you know? But no, so each day that I’m hoping to feel a little bit better – I actually end up feeling worse. It’s that “being a disappointment” trigger that I’ve developed. People want me to be better already, or do the things that they think will make me better, so I feel shitty when I can’t’ be that person that they’re expecting.

And yeah, that’s definitely more their problem than it is mine, but of course I don’t want anyone I care about to misunderstand and feel like it’s personally about them. I don’t want to have to straight up ignore people’s messages, but if I have to I have to… because right now I’m just spinning my wheels, waiting for the first day where I feel like I get some traction, and some people’s “help” definitely isn’t helping.

I’m gonna try to do tomorrow what I was hoping to do today. It’s Saturday, so it’s a weekend day… which technically shouldn’t mean shit to me, as I don’t really have a schedule I have to keep right now… but when I finally fell asleep at 4a this morning (ugh…) it was with the mindset that I wasn’t going to put any pressure on myself, it was the day after I told a friend how much I needed to just be left alone, so I was hoping to put together just one somewhat-normal day that was unaffected by anything or anyone else. But nope… woke up to a message wanting me to go “do something” today, which meant I started my day disappointing someone.

I think that tomorrow I’ve earned the right to just ignore anyone that isn’t respecting what I need, so hopefully I won’t let it weigh on me too much. It’s like fuck… leave me alone, let me start to feel better, let me get back on track, and everything can be fine. Hell, just starting to make a mental list of things that I’ve put on hold, not to mention spring coming up here around the house… yeah, I need to get my shit together.

Well, Genesee made it home safely a little bit ago, so now officially starts the time of “carrying on” I guess. When all the condolences have been given, everyone’s concern has been shown, etc… so now it’s just back to normal. As much as I appreciated the company, I’m glad that I’m gonna have a couple days and nights where it’s just me and the cat. I can feel crappy if I want, I can feel good if I want, and I can talk out loud to Mom if I want. I could have done all that with Genesee here, but you know how it is when you have company… you want it to be the best experience for them, and right now I’m definitely not the person to be around for the best experience. Meh… I know it sounds weird, but she understands.

In a way it was difficult to make myself do it, but yesterday I took Brianna to her “4D Ultrasound” appointment. She’s approaching 32 weeks, I believe, so she wanted to see if they would be able to get any good pictures of her yet-to-be-popped-out baby. At first he had his hands (and a foot) blocking the view, but after a little poking he moved around and the technician was able to get a handful of really good shots. It’s pretty remarkable… you can actually get a decent idea of how his features look, with his Brantley-like ducky lips, Brianna’s chin and nose, and the daddy’s brow line. She has already been ready to squeeze this kid out, and seeing the pictures in such detail only made that feeling even stronger. I think he needs to cook for a couple more weeks… but she’s right, the time is definitely getting closer. I’m glad that I went.

Meh… I dunno… I just felt like typing something I guess. Not really planning to socialize much for a few days. I just wanna be here in my thoughts, feelings, and memories. Of course I’ve got a doctor appointment tomorrow, so that kinda craps up my isolation plans a bit, but it’s one where I don’t really have a choice. Not really sure what I’m gonna do other than that, but after the weekend I’m probably gonna go in and visit Dad. I’ve got that new batch of scanned photos on the iPad, and rather than just e-mailing them to him, I figured it would be nice to look at them together so he might be able to tell me stories relating to them that I haven’t heard before.

This is probably the fifth or sixth time since last Sunday that I’ve opened up the blog editor and just sat here, staring at the blank screen, unable to come up with “the right words” that would end up being the first post that I’ve made since Mom passed away. I think I just need to accept that right now I just don’t have the right words. If I waited until I could come up with something exceptionally eloquent or thoughtful, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t even update this blog anymore.

Mom’s passing wasn’t unexpected, so a person might be tempted (for that reason) to think that they’ll be ready for it when it happens… but nope, that’s not how it works. It’s been almost a week now, and my brain still hasn’t decided how it wants to handle it. Nothing is “normal” about the days immediately following someone’s death, so we probably won’t really start feeling it until we all settle back into our normal routines.

I was there to support Cassi when her aunt passed away, I was there for Genesee when her dad passed away, and I was there for Brianna when her mom passed away just a few months ago… so of course they’re all being super supportive for me now. And as you’d expect, all of the family has been texting, calling, talking, and supporting each other… but with all of that fuss (which I absolutely appreciate) it doesn’t really let you feel how your brain will eventually decide that it wants to feel. That’ll probably start happening a little more around the middle of this coming week, in large part due to Genesee (who came to Ohio almost as soon as she got the news) returning home around that time.

It ends up being kinda perfect though. Having all of the company and support has actually been a good thing for me… but I’m also looking forward to things going back to normal, because I know I’m gonna have days where I want to be absolutely alone, to feel however I wanna feel about it, and without feeling like I have to act this way or that way, or appear strong for someone else’s sake when maybe I don’t want to.

I dunno… that’s all I really care to say right now. Not because I don’t have a billion thoughts and feelings and memories that I could talk about, but because my goal for this post was to just finally acknowledge it and put it out here. Besides, no matter how much I might talk about Mom, there’s simply nothing that I could say that would do her the justice that she deserves. So rather than be awkward and weird and possibly ending up saying the wrong thing due to my brain being a little fried, I’m just gonna leave it like this for now.

This is the first time I’ve experienced this, probably because I was rarely sick when I was younger, so I don’t think I ever had more than one doctor that I would have regular appointments with… but regarding some of the things with my current condition, I’m getting conflicting diagnosis/treatment advice from two of my doctors. 🤔😐 In more ways than this I’m still a kid, so when I go to a doctor I listen to what they say and take their word as gospel… assuming that they truly know what they’re talking about, and are offering me what is definitely the best diagnosis and treatment plan. 🤷🏻‍♂️👨🏻‍⚕️ But I guess as with almost anything, people often end up with differing opinions. Sometimes differing quite a bit. 😕

Things have been less than ideal with me for a couple of weeks now, and this week I went back in for a couple of different appointments to discuss it. I tend not to bitch about it unless it’s really bad, but these past few days… on Wednesday I woke up early, took a short nap in the afternoon, and after waking up I wasn’t able to go back to sleep for 30 fucking hours. 😳 Doctor appointment number one wasn’t much fun, going in at the 24 hour point… I mean, I wasn’t even sure I was gonna be able to make it there and back… but at least it wasn’t like when you take your car to the shop so they can fix a rattle, but the rattle doesn’t happen. 😒 So at least Doc got to see when it can be really bad, and in a way I appreciate when that happens.

I dunno… I’m being kind of vague because I don’t really like talking about it in a lot of ways, so back to the point – I’ve got two doctors who essentially completely disagree with what the other is saying and doing, and I’m not sure exactly what to do with that. 😟 First reaction is to trust and believe that doctor who isn’t saying the scary things, but that may be the doctor who isn’t holding anything back. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Then I try to think about “what’s in it” for each of them, and even that doesn’t really help.

But in the next couple of days I’ll have to decide who I want to roll with, and that will decide how potentially fucked up my next few months could end up being. 😐 Gah… I know… vague. I don’t want people to worry.

There was one other day where I allowed myself to do something a little frivolous. It was already something that was going to be a little bit outside of my comfort zone, but then we had to completely change our plans. 😳 The original plan was for me to go up to Columbus and pick up Cassi from work, so we could then head over to Arirang Market – which also has (or had) a restaurant in the back that serves authentic Korean food.

We went into the store and I asked the fella at the front if the restaurant was open yet, since it was only around 11am, and he said that the restaurant is no more. 😕 It’s a shame, because they had a ton of variety, at good prices, and they had all sorts of good reviews on the various sites. But since we were there, in a Korean market full of authentic Korean foodstuffs, we decided that we could just buy the stuff that would allow us to make our lunch and dinner from scratch. 🙂

In no particular order, we got kimchi, tofu soup starter, yam noodles, seaweed, soju, red pepper paste, rice, sesame oil and soy sauce, eggs, chicken and cabbage rice dumplings, rice cakes (for soup), and then a few misc snacks and a couple pairs of metal chopsticks. We were excited, because between the music, the travel and foodie videos on YouTube, the different TV shows, the picking up of the language here and there – I dunno, it just felt like we were taking our next step in the appreciation of the country and culture.

I made the soup meal on the first day, including the kimchi… and while the kimchi was pretty awful, the tofu soup, noodles, and rice cakes were tolerable. 😐 Not good, not bad… it just kinda was what it was, and that would be something that neither of us necessarily needs to try ever again. 😅 On the next day we teamed up in the kitchen, with her making the fried rice from scratch, and me frying up the chicken dumplings in condensed broth. Now that meal was amazing. 🤤 Part of it was because I was super hungry, but no… it really was amazing. I ate until I was beyond poofed, and I still wanted to keep going.

Granted, that was probably the furthest from “authentic Korean” and towards “normal food” that we could have gone, but it still counted as Korean. 😏 And neither of us were that bad with the chopsticks, either. From both days there was enough left over that I was able to send a decent sample of it all back up with Cassi so her mom could give it a try. And she agreed with us when it came to the dumplings and rice, for sure. (I forgot to send the kimchi… which is probably a good thing for her.)

I know it’s been a good chunk of time since my last entry, but I’m not even gonna bother going back to catch up on what I’ve already written… because honestly not a whole hell of a lot has been different, so I don’t have that much to write about. We’ve had a couple decent snow storms, and a couple days where the temps were in the negatives in the morning, so that’s managed to keep me at home just as much as my normal anxiety issues usually do. 😏

One out of the ordinary thing… I did take a trip to ‘Da Boat with Bri for two nights last week. 😊 We’ve talked about it for months, and have had it in the planning stages for the past several weeks – so we were relieved to have pulled it off, considering that both of us have any number of things that could have popped up to wreck the plan. 😳 Last time she was down there with me was years ago when Dezzy also came along, and they couldn’t even get onto the boat back then.

So of course that’s why we were really looking forward to this trip, since she could see and do everything along with me this time. We took a bunch of outfits and props and shit, just in case we decided to do baby belly photos, but it was too easy to just be lazy in the room or going up to the boat to have fun… so very few pics were actually taken, and that was absolutely fine with us. 😋 Our luck would come and go, but it was good enough at times that I could actively see the gambling bug taking hold of her brain right before my very eyes. 😅 Heh… it wasn’t really like that, but she did have a good time and played enough to where she developed favorite machines and everything.

This past week or so has been nice… not having any appointments, not forcing myself to worry about any responsibility stuff. 😐 Heh… that sounds bad. I just mean that I let myself take a break from all of the adulting for a while, although I’m picking back up where I left off here in a bit. (Catching up on the bills that have been stacking up in the mean time) Oh… I do have another “since our last episode” story that I almost forgot about. It’ll be coming up a bit later, if I manage to get through all the bills this evening…

But this trip… I dunno… the more that I think about my medical stuff, the more that I want to do stuff with my friends while I still can. 🤒 I have no reason to think that I won’t be able to do things for years to come – but just in case, ya know? Even Dad, a while back, reiterated that point to me a few times… that I need to stop worrying so much, and sometimes just do the fun thing while not worrying about anything else. 🤷🏻‍♂️